


conjugal visits are almost as fun as family reunions (and this isn't either)

by ang3lba3



Series: A Disease Called Friendship [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: (EVERYONES ALIVE NOW THO), (someone gets punched but? idk that i really need this tag? better safe), Domestic Violence, Fluffy Angst, Humanstuck, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Reunions, and even then it's mostly angst, by angst i mean painful fluff, tbh this is mostly dave and karkat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 15:29:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5545214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ang3lba3/pseuds/ang3lba3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You’re not ready. You’ve had two goddamn weeks filled with excuse after excuse to avoid meeting up because you’re goddamn terrified but there is literally no putting it off any longer before Terezi just shows up at your house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	conjugal visits are almost as fun as family reunions (and this isn't either)

**Author's Note:**

> here you go lovelies!!

Your name is Dave Strider, and today is your fifteenth birthday.

It’s the second one you’ve had, and so far it’s not as good but looking up quickly.

 

 

You lock your phone and slide it back into your jean pocket. It’s 40 degrees out and you’re only have a t-shirt on, but you’re sweating like you’re running a marathon. 

You’re not ready. You’ve had two goddamn weeks filled with excuse after excuse to avoid meeting up because you’re goddamn _terrified_ but there is literally no putting it off any longer before Terezi just shows up at your house and-

Jade reaches out and squeezes your hand, smiling understandingly. Her green eyes sparkle in the flashing light of the OPEN sign. John is staring at his key chain absently, obviously nervous, playing with the tiny Mjolnir on it. (You’d gotten it for him part as a joke, part serious. He’d cried like a big asshole and you were extremely uncomfortable and trying not to seem it.)

(A lot of your friendships now include crying and being uncomfortable, to be honest.)

(You’ve really got to stop getting high and sobbing uncontrollably, there’s nothing cool about that.)

“Let’s do this,” Rose says, practically vibrating with excitement as she shoves you at the door.

Yeah, Kanaya is still single af and apparently pining after her. Of course she’s excited. Terezi was horribly silent on how Karkat was being about you, and you were too scared to ask for yourself.

(That’s a thing you do now. Just admit how scared you are in your head. Dirk and Rose have been good for you like that, forcing you to be more honest with yourself.)

(You can’t stand it.)

Not having much of a choice, you stride (heh) forward, putting on your cool kid persona like it will protect you from the emotional meltdown that’s incoming, oh shit it’s a goddamn bullet train and you’re standing right in front of it except you aren’t superman even if you have a cape and you’re going to be crushed trying to stop it.

The bell on the door tinkles away and 12 heads turn with varying interest toward the entrance.

It’s weird as fuck, seeing them human, and you don’t recognize several of them (ones who died before you reached the meteor, probably). But you’re not really looking at them anyways.

You’re looking at Karkat, and he’s looking at you, and his eyes are bright fucking red - Jesus how is the light not hurting his eyes maybe he _isn’t_ human you’re cringing just thinking about having your glasses off in here and now you’re cringing because he’s coming towards you uh, sort of, really fast, and is that a-

Yep. That was indeed a fist, and it did indeed travel at two billion miles per hours directly at your face. You hear your glasses crunch and snap, and you grunt.

Not exactly the reunion you’d been expecting. You’re not - exactly sure _what_ reunion you had been expecting, and you probably should have seen this coming, but-

“YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE.” Karkat’s voice is loud as fucking ever and you wince, busy picking pieces of plastic off your reflexively closed eyelids. “HOW DARE YOU WALK IN HERE LIKE - LIKE- BEING ALIVE AND SHIT. I CANNOT BELIEVE THE NERVE OF YOU, EXCEPT OH WAIT, I TOTALLY CAN, BECAUSE-”

You get the last piece off and open your eyes in slits. Fucking _shit_ that light was as bright as you expected, and Karkat’s face is the exact right type of scrunched up that you remember from when you were bleeding out in his arms. There’s a few key differences, like how his tears aren’t red, and his voice isn’t backed with a subvocal growl and shrieks.

It’s not even a conscious choice when you lean in and down and crush him to your chest, and he fights you, punches and pounds on your chest, screaming incomprehensibly into your t-shirt. You swallow, hard, blinking rapidly.

 _It’s just the lights,_ you lie to yourself, allowing yourself the luxury of falsehood, _making my eyes water._ You’re _not_ crying.

Karkat shoves you off him, but only so he can grab your face and tug it down - he’s actually _shorter_ than you remember - and presses his lips to yours even though he’s quivering too hard with sobs to actually kiss properly.

“You _died,_ how could you _do that?”_ he asks, shaking against you, pressing his forehead to yours.

You want to say something snarky, it bubbles up in your throat, but instead you just press a kiss to his cheek, tug him back to your chest.

 _Quite easily,_ you want to say. _Protecting your dumb ass,_ would also be acceptable. _Because I got down with the clown,_ would probably be a good one too.

Yeah. Turns out that when you lock someone insane all by themselves for extended periods of times with nothing but corpses they’ve killed as they slowly freeze to death they do not, in fact, become less insane. There is rather conclusive evidence that it makes them even _more_ homicidal and unhinged. 

But you don’t say anything, because you love him, and you’re pretty sure when you walked in he was holding hands with the aforesaid clown. The clown who, now that you looked at him, slowly did the cliche ‘i’M wAtChInG yOu MoThErFuCkEr’ gesture followed by a mock motion that reminded you of the juggling club that’d been the second to last thing you saw. 

It’s kind of ruining the moment, so you focus on Karkat instead. 

“It’s okay, Kitkat,” you say, instinctively reaching up to rub his horns and feeling a weird jolt of confusion for a second when they’re not there. 

Goddamnit, those were your cheat code to his positive emotions.

“I’m nOT A CANDYbAR.” he’s obviously trying not to yell, and it’s so fucking endearing and familiar that you bury your face in his hair.

“Fuck, I missed you,” you murmur, and okay, maybe your breath is hitching a little, but you’re only fucking human, back the fuck off.

“DO NoT evER DO THAt aGaIn,” he orders, alternating between yelling and sobbing and whispering. It’s a little creepy, actually, but you know this is him trying to be considerate of the fact that you’re in a public place, now that he’s remembered where you are.

It’s cool. Bro owns this place, anyways. You had anticipated a lot of drama (loud drama, possibly murder) so you’d decided to go with someplace that you could fire everyone if they tried to stop you from hashing out your shit.

For the first time since you were old enough to realize he wasn’t there, you feel that tight clench around your heart relax.

**Author's Note:**

> so dunno if you caught that but gamzee killed dave in sgrub. this is going to no doubt cause some drama. //sighs// what have i done


End file.
